Berlin-based Langdock moves its parent company from the US to Germany | Hacker News Reader

Berlin-based Langdock moves its parent company from the US to Germany

euronews.com

56 pointsjethronethro27 comments

> US laws, including the Cloud Act, have created concerns across the market that American authorities could seek access to customer data.

The CLOUD Act is becoming a bigger and bigger deal here in Europe. It definitely kills deals.

"Is the CLOUD Act only applicable to U.S. cloud service providers?"

"No. The CLOUD Act applies to all electronic communication service or remote computing service providers that operate or have a legal presence in the U.S. For example, the CLOUD Act is also applicable to a cloud service provider that is headquartered in the EU and has operations in the United State"

https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/cloud-act/

Seems intentionally misleading. While I agree exposure to US surveillance in non-US providers likely isn't zero, it's significantly harder for the US to do this internationally for legal, practical & political reasons. AWS is not a neutral voice on their competitor's limitations.

> also applicable to a cloud service provider that is headquartered in the EU and has operations in the United State(sic)

As if any company isn't going to create a subsidiary for that.

The difference is with European data stored by American companies

It’s not surprising. With abrupt changes regarding tariffs, policies and AI in particular, US became increasingly unstable.

Perhaps trust could be regained if the country was renamed to Lower Canada by popular vote. I’m not sure anything else would help at this point.

Unstable? I think you mean actively hostile… unless of course you’re Russia or North Korea

Amazes me that, after the events of the past 3 years, so many people still think Russia is the major foreign influence on American politics.

Who are you implying it is? China? Iran? NK? Someone else?

Well, there's a pretty obvious answer that doesn't require a conspiracy theory, because the influence is well documented and, in many cases, isn't even denied or concealed by those being influenced.

I'll give you a hint: many of our most prominent politicians openly proclaim that it is a religious Commandment from God Himself to do whatever that country's leaders want.

In case anyone else is not sure, I asked ChatGPT and it says Saudi Arabia is a match.

There you have it, it isn’t that hard to write the name of the country.

By amount of money it is most definitely Qatar.

Sovereign AI is going to be the next frontier. It’s apparent that all nations need to prepare themselves for possible challenges from foreign hyperscalers facing laws that are being rushed through to alleviate fear caused by fear mongers.

dont you mean laws being completed ignored by hyperscalers?

let me guess.. regulatory capture?

Maybe don't guess and read the article? European data sovereignty and CLOUD act.

Same thought I had.

But "European data sovereignty" is regulatory capture, although it sort of reads like they had a US parent company to attend y combinator and raise money, but are now moving fully to Berlin, which is what they intended from the start.

Isn't regulatory capture when a company shapes regulation to achieve business interests? How is this the case here?

Excluding foreign competitors is a classic ‘regulatory capture’-style approach. Regulatory capture is (typically) a ‘bootleggers and baptists’ scenario where there are both good and bad reasons to enact the rules.

> But "European data sovereignty" is regulatory capture

This doesn't match my understanding of regulatory capture [0] - is there any evidence that this company specifically orchestrated the EU's data protection laws in order to benefit from by blocking out competitors? Would be unexpected, since laws like GDPR predate its founding.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

> is there any evidence that this company specifically orchestrated the EU's data protection laws

Companies don't write laws. All regulatory capture requires is for the company to be benefiting from laws and/or policy designed to exclude foreign companies and/or other competition. The point is that type of economic productivity is useless and derived from corruption in a free market. For years the EU has attempted to exclude US tech companies from competing and this is a continuation of that.

And for what its worth your wiki link seems to agree with me, I'm not sure why you posted it.

I never claimed companies write laws, but they do lobby governments to write laws which are beneficial for them. This is well-documented, including in the US, fwiw.

> All regulatory capture requires is for the company to be benefiting from laws and/or policy designed to exclude foreign companies and/or other competition

This doesn't match what the wiki links says (first sentence):

> In politics, regulatory capture (also called agency capture) is a form of corruption of authority that occurs when a political entity, policymaker, or regulator is co-opted to serve the commercial, ideological, or political interests of a minor constituency[...]

Operative word is "co-opted", which sort of fits with what would be required for something to be considered corruption. So no, the company can't just benefit, they also have to have pushed for the specific outcome.

> For years the EU has attempted to exclude US tech companies from competing and this is a continuation of that.

I find this quite hard to believe. Digital sovereignty in the EU only really started in 2025, prior regulation like GDPR has applied to tech companies from all companies, including the EU. The continent has effectively allowed Microsoft, Google, Meta, etc, to dominate the tech scene here since their inception. Perhaps you're thinking of China.

The difference between data sovereignty and regulatory capture is that the populace generally wants data sovereignty. The populace does not want big corporations dictating the rules of the trade.

i'm not sure why you're being downvoted. They know more AI regulation is coming, they know what it's going to be, they're influencing it and setting themselves up to benefit. It literally is the definition of regulatory capture.

i didn't guess, it was a rhetorical question.. it is regulatory capture.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com